The move follows human rights watchdog Amnesty International’s scathing criticism of the government for the law’s extensive use in the state in the past two decades.
An Amnesty report, titled “A lawless law”, says that up to 20,000 people, including children, were arrested under the Public Safety Act (PSA) during this period.
“The Amnesty report will not be thrown into the dustbin. We will study it thoroughly and consider the suggestions incorporated in the report pertaining to the Public Safety Act and other issues,” Omar told the Assembly in Jammu yesterday.
“The time has come when the PSA should be debated upon for its amendment or replacement by some other relatively better law.”
Omar said he had not studied the Amnesty report in detail, but he is the first chief minister to have expressed readiness to discuss replacing the act since it was promulgated in 1978 by Omar’s grandfather Sheikh Abdullah.
The 82-page report has called for a repeal of the act, saying it “gravely” violates the people’s human rights.
“By using the PSA to incarcerate suspects without adequate evidence, India has not only gravely violated their human rights but also failed in its duty to charge and try such individuals and to punish them if found guilty in a fair trial,” it says.
The report says the number of people under administrative detention (that is, without trial) in Jammu and Kashmir is 14 times higher than the national average, although the conviction rate in the northern state is far lower.
The rate of conviction for possession of unlawful weapons — one of the commonest charges against alleged supporters of armed groups — is 0.5 per hundred cases, which is 130 times lower than the national average, it says.
The conviction rate for attempt to murder is eight times lower than the national average, that for rioting is seven times lower and that for arson five times lower, it says.
Amnesty accuses the security forces of following “monthly/quarterly targets” for detentions. It refers to a unified command meeting in Srinagar on March 10, 2005, where two army generals “recommended setting of monthly targets for detaining the over-ground workers”.
While Omar favoured a debate on the PSA, he tried to dispel the “perception” that it had been used widely last year. “There are only 128 persons in custody under the PSA at present,” he said.